There Are No Children Here

by Alex Kotlowitz

  The prosecution, though, was already overburdened with cases. It didn’t want to go to trial. The three prosecutors in the courtroom where Terence’s case was to be heard handled about 450 cases at a time, up from 250 cases the year before. They suspected part of the reason for the increase was political. Their boss, Richard M. Daley, was running for mayor, so the more cases they prosecuted, particularly those related to drugs, the more convinced the electorate would be that he was a strong law-and-order man. In fact, of the twenty-five thousand drug defendants in the county the previous year, over half had had their cases dismissed or their charges dropped, according to one study. As a result, the prosecutors—or state’s attorneys, as they are called in Chicago—plea-bargained nearly 90 percent of their cases. They just didn’t have the time to go to trial.

  They had told Audrey they would offer Terence ten years in exchange for a guilty plea. She thought that was too much for him, especially since she believed he didn’t commit the first robbery. It was also his first offense as an adult. She wanted to get him six. She had yet to talk to Terence about it other than to inform him of what had been offered. She believed she could negotiate a shorter term with the prosecution.

  Nineteen

  THE HOLIDAYS came and went without incident, though on December 30 Pharoah insisted on staying up all night so that he would be exhausted the next night. He wanted to sleep through the ritual celebratory shooting on New Year’s Eve. Both boys had had a good Christmas. LaJoe had begun buying the children gifts on layaway back in September. It was her way of putting away savings; she didn’t have a bank account. Lafeyette received a radio; Pharoah an Atari video game. Both boys also got $10 watches as well as clothes, mostly slacks and shirts for school. The family had a small tree, which LaJoe decorated with candy canes and tinsel. She hung lights in her windows. Christmas, LaJoe would joke, was the only time of the year the neighborhood was well lit.

  In early February, Pharoah returned from watching cars at a Blackhawks game. Lafeyette met him at the door.

  “What you make?” Lafeyette asked.

  “Two dollars,” Pharoah replied.

  “That’s stupid. Working all night for two dollars. I make seven dollars when I work.”

  Pharoah didn’t put up a fight. He just shrugged and shuffled to his room, where he folded the two dollar bills and stuffed them into a jacket pocket. He always saved his money. LaJoe joshed him about it. “What you gonna to do with all that money?” she’d ask. Pharoah just giggled. Usually he ended up spending it on video games or candy. This time he had a purpose. He was saving it for the Boys Club annual talent show. He and Lafeyette never missed going.

  The Boys Club’s one-story building was as old as Henry Horner. In the club’s game room, Pharoah shot pool and became proficient at eight ball—though none of the pool cues had tips. Lafeyette played basketball in the gym. The club’s indoor swimming pool, which had been closed for nine years, was scheduled to open in a few weeks. The club was an oasis for the neighborhood’s children, though it served mainly those who lived east of Damen Avenue. Those children on the other side, who couldn’t cross the boundary for fear of being attacked by rival gangs, frequented Chicago Commons, which boasted a gym and a new literacy center. There, they could find a quiet spot to do their homework or read. Commons also had a daycare center and Head Start program. For the talent show, however, the gangs’ geographic boundaries temporarily disappeared. There, adversaries mingled. The police turned out in large numbers, too. It was one of the few community gatherings.

  The show was as old as the Boys Club. Local children and young men and women put together singing, dancing, and comedy acts. In the 1960s and 1970s, local radio stations sent talent scouts. The members of the rock group Earth, Wind, and Fire, all of whom grew up in Horner, got their start here. Lafeyette and Pharoah looked forward to the show every year; they wouldn’t have missed it for the world.

  On this Friday evening, the club’s gym filled up quickly. Pharoah and Lafeyette found a place on the top row of the bleachers, where they could stand and have a clear view of the stage. Children, teenagers, and young mothers filled the folding chairs. The Vice Lords cocked their hats to the left; the Disciples to the right.

  Lafeyette, in his Chicago Blackhawks starter jacket, looked around the gym for his “associates.” Pharoah, dressed in a gray sweatshirt with a drawing of San Francisco’s skyline on the front, stood with Porkchop, who restlessly bounced from foot to foot, grinning with excitement. He said little to Pharoah except to nudge him now and then to point out something funny or odd. A teenage boy hawked rainbow-colored fans, though it wasn’t very hot in the gym; another sold headbands with SUBARU printed on front. “Ain’t nobody gonna want to buy those,” Pharoah told Porkchop, who nodded in agreement.

  “How you doing out there?” the show’s master of ceremonies, a club staff member, shouted into the microphone. The antiquated sound system made it sound as if he were hollering through a tin can. “Fine!” Pharoah and Lafeyette yelled back in unison with the crowd.

  In preparation for the singing of the national anthem, the emcee yelled, “Don’t you love this country?”

  “Nooooooo,” the crowd roared, drowning out Pharoah’s meekly spoken “yes.” Only a few in the crowd, including Pharoah, placed their hands on their hearts during the anthem’s singing.

  The first act was one of the crowd’s favorites. Five teenage boys from Rockwell Gardens put together a highly choreographed routine. They called themselves the Awesome Force, and introduced themselves by telling the audience their astrological signs. “Hi, I’m Donnell and I’m Pisces, the sign of the fish.” The girls in the gym yelled and screamed and nearly fainted at the sight of these young stars. Pharoah bounced to the music as he tried to keep from getting pushed off the bleachers. The gym was getting more and more crowded.

  Lafeyette wandered away with a companion. They swiped some straws from the concession stand and snaked through the crowd, blowing spitballs at young girls. Swwwooosh. One smacked a girl in the back of her neck. She turned around. “Get your hormones together!” she screamed at her assailants. Lafeyette and the other boy guffawed, repeating the retort to one another with obvious adolescent satisfaction. “Get your hormones together. Maaan, get your hormones together.”

  Everyone was in good spirits. Even a young overweight girl who sang Keith Sweat’s “Make It Last Forever” off key and who was booed off the stage managed a smile at the crowd’s reaction. It upset Pharoah, though, who commented to Porkchop, “They booing her. They shouldn’t be doing that.”

  Pharoah and Porkchop giggled at the next performance. A boy about twelve did convincing imitations of Pee-wee Herman and Popeye. Next, a teenage girl in a snug-fitting dress sang “Superwoman,” a song made popular by the pop star Karyn White. It had become something of a theme song for the women in the neighborhood, so all the girls in the audience, most of whom were young mothers, sang along, belting out the lyrics. As they harmonized, some turned to their boyfriends with obvious glee.

  I’m not your superwoman

  I’m not the kind of girl that you can let down

  And think that everything’s okay

  Boy, I am only human

  This girl needs more than occasional hugs as a token of love from you to me

  “Hey, Pharoah.” Rickey had spotted his young friend in the bleachers. “Hey, Pharoah.” Pharoah clambered down to greet him.

  “Wanna hot dog?” Rickey asked.

  “Sure,” Pharoah replied. He followed Rickey, who bought him a hot dog and pop and also gave Pharoah $2.00.

  “Thanks, Rickey.”

  “You straight, Pharoah.” Pharoah rejoined Porkchop and shared the food with him. Rickey returned to his friends.

  Late in the evening, a young man got on stage to rap. He looked around the audience. “All the Travelers in here holler travelers.” The crowd roared back, “TRAVELERS.”

  “All the Fours say solid.” “SOLID.”

  “A
ll the Stones says Stone Love.” “STONE LOVE.”

  “All the C’s in the house say Conservatives.” “CONSERVATIVES.”

  The gangs had called a truce to attend the talent show.

  As the show wound down toward midnight, a rumor floated through the crowd that would prey on both Lafeyette’s and Pharoah’s minds in the weeks to come. A teenage girl named Alice had been shot in the head four times somewhere farther west. Some had her already dead; others had her holding on for her life. Lafeyette and Pharoah just listened to the talk. They both knew her, though not well. They both prayed for her and asked about her well-being for weeks after.

  Lafeyette had looked for Craig Davis at the talent show but couldn’t find him. Craig, who had brightened everyone’s summer with the dance parties on the front porch, had turned Lafeyette on to music. Lafeyette now listened to cassettes regularly and would often bring the older boy new rap tapes for him to hear.

  A few evenings after the show, Lafeyette heard that Craig was in the building, visiting his girlfriend, so he went upstairs to see him. Craig was sitting on the couch, writing a poem. A music tape he’d put together was blaring in the background.

  “What it is, Laf,” Craig said.

  “Hey, Craig.” Lafeyette sat down next to the older boy and watched him scribble on a sheet of looseleaf notebook paper. Lafeyette needled him a bit about his girlfriend.

  “She gonna be my girlfriend,” he told Craig.

  “You can have her.”

  “Okay, I can have her?” Lafeyette said, chuckling to himself. Craig continued to write.

  “What you think?” Craig asked, showing Lafeyette the poem. It was entitled “Children of the Future,” and though its grammar and spelling were rough, Lafeyette understood it fully. It was an ode to learning. Craig was always telling Lafeyette how important school was.

  I can’t blame the teacher for teachen

  I shoulden criticize the speaken

  Because the less I knew the more I weaken

  The teacher gave a lesson.

  If I was there I learned.

  What’s the use of letting it go to waste win I can show what I earned.

  I took advanedge of the education

  Not advanedge of it being free

  If I took advanedge of both

  It wouldn’t mean much to me.

  “Straight out,” said Lafeyette, who was tickled that someone older than he would ask for his opinion. Lafeyette so admired Craig. Despite his kinetic energy, there was something soothing about just being around him. Craig told Lafeyette he was going to dee-jay a party at the Boys Club in a couple of weeks on March 3. He told Lafeyette to stop by.

  It was a Thursday in late February, and in the cold and dreariness of a Chicago winter afternoon, Pharoah could be found locked in his bedroom. It was what he had begun to call his “brain day.”

  Flopped face down on his bed, he had spread about him mimeographed sheets of words, hundreds of words. He was studying for the upcoming spelling bee.

  “Dodgery,” he asked himself out loud. Looking away from the paper, he spelled the word. Slowly. “D-O-D-G-E-R-Y.” If he started to stammer, he’d stop and take a breath. Slow down, he’d tell himself. Slow down. He was in training. Both to learn the words and to conquer his stutter.

  One of the triplets, Timothy, banged on the door. “Who’s there?” Pharoah asked.

  “Me,” Timothy said. Curious, like Pharoah himself, he wanted to know what those sounds were coming from the other side of the door. Why was his brother talking to himself?

  “What you want?” Pharoah hollered.

  “Let me in,” Timothy pleaded.

  Pharoah opened the door slightly. “I’m studying, Timothy. Now get on outta here.” When Timothy took a step into the room, Pharoah swatted his younger brother on the back of his head, hard enough so that Timothy started to cry. It was out of character for Pharoah, but he wasn’t messing around. He was going to do okay in this spelling bee. Nothing was going to distract him. Almost every day after school, Pharoah headed directly for his bedroom and went through his practice routine. Sometimes he’d have his mother bring him his dinner so that he didn’t have to interrupt his studying. On occasion, Lafeyette joined Pharoah on the bed and, as if he were a Marine drill sergeant, flung words at his brother, hoping to find particularly difficult ones to stump him with. Obedient. Soybean. Hazardous. He never asked Pharoah the same word more than twice. If he couldn’t get it on the first go-round, he thought, then he never would.

  Pharoah also studied hard at school. This year Clarise, one of the school’s brightest, was chosen as the other class representative for the bee. An unusually mature fifth-grader, Clarise Gates had been the youngest Suder student selected to travel to Africa. When Pharoah had lost last year, she had pulled him aside and to try to cheer him up, whispering, “That’s all right, Pharoah. You know you’re gonna win next year.”

  She and Pharoah liked each other. Both were curious and studious and forever cheerful. They both had wonderfully open smiles. Clarise, though, towered over Pharoah, who was almost six inches shorter than his friend. On Tuesday and Thursday mornings, the two got to school half an hour early so that they could test each other. There were some words Pharoah had trouble pronouncing because of his stutter. “I can’t say this right,” he’d cry out in frustration. “No such thing as can’t,” Clarise would remind him, like a mother encouraging her son. And the two would work at sounding out the word, syllable by syllable.

  One morning Clarise, with a slight frown on her face, told Pharoah, “I ain’t even gonna be in it. I’m gonna let you win it yourself.”

  “What?” Pharoah cried. He too began to frown. How could his friend desert him?

  “Naw, Pharoah, I’m gonna be in it. I was only joking,” she assured him. The two giggled and kept at their studying. Over the weeks, as they prepared for the contest, Pharoah and Clarise came to call each other “partner.”

  • • • •

  The week before the spelling bee was a disturbing time for the family. On Friday, February 24, two men, neither of whom lived there, had a fight in the house. A neighbor from upstairs whom everyone knew as Tough Luck had accused a man named Willie, who sold fake jewelry with LaShawn’s boyfriend, of stealing a tire from his car. LaJoe had seen the dispute simmering for days—the men had exchanged heated words in the parking lot—so she warned LaShawn about letting Willie and his problems into the apartment.

  On this afternoon, Paul and LaJoe’s mother were sitting on the sofa when Tough Luck stuck his head through the unlocked door. “Mister Paul,” he said, “I just wanna talk to the man who’s got my tire.” Tough Luck was from the Deep South and still addressed people as “mister” and referred to his car as a “skillet.” Willie, who was standing at the end of the hallway, shouted, “Man, I don’t have your tire. Just take a tire.”

  “Mister, I don’t want no problem, but I be damned if I’ll let anyone take anything from me,” Tough Luck said diffidently.

  “Willie,” Paul urged, “get on out of here with this thing. You too, Tough Luck.”

  Willie ignored Paul. He got louder. “If you want it, take it. I ain’t got nothing. If you can see it, take it. If you insist I took it, I took it!”

  Tough Luck’s calmness worried Paul. It was, he thought, like the lull before a storm. “Man, give me my tire. My skillet’s missing a tire. I ain’t gonna let no one take nothing from me,” Tough Luck said. He then reached into his back pocket, pulled out a pistol, and shot, almost randomly, at Willie. Paul dove over the couch. Lelia Mae, whose movement was constrained because of her recent stroke, rolled off the sofa onto the floor. “The kids!” she hollered. “The kids!” Pharoah and Lafeyette weren’t in the house at the time, but the triplets, who had been watching the argument, ran for the front bedroom, where they took refuge in the doorless closet. They pulled clothes over them as if the fabric offered some protection.

  The bullet, which missed Paul by inches, embedded its
elf in the wall. Tough Luck, who either wasn’t a good shot or, as was more likely the case, didn’t really want to wound anyone, started moving in on Willie, who jumped into the room with the triplets and pulled a dresser in front of the door. Tough Luck, in his quiet determination, pushed open the door a few inches and stuck the gun through. Willie slammed the door on his hand. Tough Luck dropped the gun—and then, as calmly as he had entered, left.

  When LaJoe arrived, shortly after the shoot-out and just when the police got there, she went into a spiraling rage. She took the elevator to Tough Luck’s apartment and banged on his door. “Open this door!” she screamed hysterically. “You came into my house and almost shot my kids. Open the door!” Her friend Rochelle and her neighbor Red had to restrain her. The two brought her back home.

  A few days later, Lelia Mae moved out. The ceaseless activity in the apartment had become too much for her. She wished LaJoe wouldn’t leave to play cards or to visit Rochelle some nights. And the violence, both inside and outside, brought back memories of her daughter’s murder nearly ten years earlier. She made arrangements to live with another one of her daughters, who had her own house. “I already miss my grandma. I hope she come back,” Pharoah told his mother. “I don’t,” said Lafeyette. “There be too much danger over here.” LaJoe later covered the bullet hole with a small wicker wallhanging. It was, like much else, a bad memory to be papered over.

  Five days later, LaShawn went into labor with her third child. In her seventh month of pregnancy, she had stopped smoking Karachi. She went cold turkey when she was arrested on an old warrant for stealing a car. During those days, she could feel the fetus in her curl up into a tight ball. It went through the withdrawal with her. She wanted a healthy baby.